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Sunday, July 29, 2007

Atmosphere

All of you who are familiar with this blog will know that I often come back to the idea that everything we need to know regarding the possibilities of inner development can be gleaned from studying, and attempting to understand, nature. This is, I believe, why one of Gurdjieff's five "Oblogolnian strivings" was the study of the laws of world-creation and world-maintenance. Dogen is no different- he believes that every arising we encounter, no matter what it is, fully expresses the dharma--that is, all Truth is entire contained within and expressed by every element of nature.

Back to atmosphere.

We all form inner atmospheres as we grow older. This atmosphere is composed of "elements"- impressions- that have fallen into the gravity well of our being and remained, more or less, on the surface of our various "inner planets," or centers.

In the Gurdjieff work we call these collective "surface elements" of man's being personality.

Every planet in the actual (outer) solar system has a "personality." Jupiter, for example, acquired a dense atmosphere composed mostly of hydrogen. Mars has a thin atmosphere; earth a thicker one; and so on. In each case, what can take place on the surface of the planet- its ability to support organic life, for example--is determined by the atmosphere. So atmosphere determines the potential for growth.

In the same way, what we acquire and incorporate into our personality over the course of a lifetime helps to determine what can take place beneath the outer layers of our various inner atmospheres. Personality is just as much a part of the whole being as is essence, and ego--and, even more importantly, it becomes a vital determinant factor in regard to the question of what can come in. If personality forms one way, a man may be able to acquire much more new material than if it forms in another. We have all seen this. In a real sense it has something to do with the initial, or exoteric, and even the mesoteric question of being "open" or "closed."

Now, every center in man contributes to the assembly of what we call personality. Thus, every center's "atmosphere" plays a role in the overall composition of the system.

As we get older, the coating of personality over the centers and their parts becomes denser. Eventually some of the material--impressions--we would like to take into our various inner planets begins to burn up as it enters the atmosphere.

The impressions urgently ought to be reaching deeper into the system, falling on and even penetrating the surface of the inner planets or centers, and contributing to their development by bringing vital new elements to them. Elements which would contribute to an inner alchemy that unites the planets around a "sun" and creates a complete inner solar system.

They don't.

The problem is that we haven't taken impressions in deep enough all along. They have consequently formed a thick "rejecting layer" around our inner parts.

Now, of course, all of this is analogy and there is a great deal of further conceptualization and pondering that could be done on this subject. All I am doing here is sketching the idea out so that readers can try to take it out into the world and examine it in real-life circumstances. In addition, it is probably best to try not to become quite too literal about it, because that would create a rigidity that might sabotage some of the potential intuitive insights available in this concept.

In the past I've referred to this chemical problem within us as the "rejecting part." I always assumed, upon observing it in myself, that the part in me that rejects things from outside--which is fear-based, no doubt, and probably regulated largely by chief feature-- is essentially psychological in nature. It is only recently that the question of what it means physically and what it means chemically have occurred to me.

Fear has a chemical and a physical basis related to the composition of our inner solar system.

We urgently need to allow things to enter us more deeply. What is it that prevents it? Can we have an effect on it?

I think we need to see our atmosphere a bit more clearly, and begin to take more responsibility for it.

May your inner leaves find good air to breathe.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Within conditions

How much time do I spend every day protecting myself from all that stuff out there?

Every single one of us, I think, inhabits a fortress of our own devising. We grow shells as hard and thick as we are able, and wear them so comfortably that we forget they exist. Turtles are unable to conceive of life without their shells: their entire way of being depends on the protective outer layer. In actual fact, the shell defines the turtle. Take it away, and it's not a turtle any more.

We're pretty much the same way. A man's Being is determined by how tough his protective layers are, and just how much of reality can seep in between the cracks. ...If you peeled off my protective layer, I'm not sure I'd be what we call a man any more. That might be a good thing... or not.

We don't know.

The one big difference between turtles and men is that in the man's case the "shell" of his personality prevents him from truly inhabiting his conditions, whereas in the turtle's case it facilitates it.

Just about everything the turtle's shell evolved to deal with is permanent: a product of the ecological niche it inhabits. We can't say that about man, however; our own conditions are constantly variable, and the shells we grow to protect our psyche don't expand our flexibility of response, they limit it. From both an evolutionary and a psychological/spiritual point of view, our own "shells" are counter-adaptive: that is, our closed mindset actually prevents us from responding appropriately to outer conditions. (Read, for example, Jared Diamond's book Collapse for insights into how oddly and obviously rigid mindsets probably limited and ultimately doomed some early Norse settlements.)

So why are we so devoted to the parts of ourselves that shut out reality? Probably because they are so familiar, so habitual, and feel soooo comfortable that we're ok with them- even when it becomes pathetically apparent that we're not in relationship with our lives. We'd rather have our shells than risk any pain. In a dog eat dog world, even stupid safety seems to be better than no safety.

OK, so much for the neat dissertation derived from the photograph (which was taken on the banks of the Hudson River at the mouth of the Sparkill at the last full moon in June, when the river's turtles emerge to lay their eggs.)

Getting past the theory, what's in it for us?

Toss the shell! Wherever we are, it's worth it to try to remember at that moment that we are within these conditions.

That's a tricky thing. After all, our inherent unconsciousness militates against an awareness of that kind. Only an alliance with the organism itself can help support a greater level of sensation of now.

And just what, you may ask, is that all about? What is an alliance with the organism?

It's all about seeking and sensing that inner gravity that our solar-system-in-formation produces. Grounding ourselves within the experience of this body, this moment.

In my own experience, we must perpetually seek the immediacy of the situation: sense our bodies, feel our emotions, think about where we are and what is taking place. If we get just a little bit closer to the body, we may begin to see how terribly automatic all our supposedly clever responses are: how reflexively our ego congratulates us for our insensitivity; how blind we are to the needs of others.

If we stick our necks out of the shells a little bit, well, yes, we still have shells--but we may gradually begin to realize that there's a whole world out there.

And within that world, everything arises within, and depends, on relationships--which flow inwards, like Alph the sacred river, into this vessel, into caverns measureless to man...

...the aim being, Insh'Allah, to make sure our own inner rivers will not reach sunless seas.

May your trees bear fruit, and your wells yield water.